Design of the M&S acquisition support effort of the SANDF GBADS acquisition programme

Abstract:

The Ground Based Air Defence System (GBADS) acquisition programme, of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), provided an opportunity to apply Modelling and Simulation (M&S), at a system of systems level, for acquisition risk reduction. At the same time it was used as a vehicle to establish a credible acquisition support capability. The purpose of this paper is to report on the design of the acquisition support effort and, to a certain extent, attempt to generalise some of the techniques employed. The paper firstly provides a brief background to the GBADS acquisition programme after which the SANDF acquisition process is briefly explained. The role of a Defence Evaluation and Research Institute is elaborated upon, focusing on the use of M&S to establish a shared Body of Knowledge and “concurrent” tactical doctrine development. It concludes by showing how the established capability needs to be expanded into other areas of the defence life cycle

Description:

This work was supported by the South African Armaments Corporation (Armscor) and the South African Army